Minister says province won't be footing the bill for Calgary's $850M Green Line wind-down
Devin Dreeshen says 'the funding is still there' for major LRT expansion
Alberta Minister of Transportation and Economic Corridors Devin Dreeshen says the province won't be footing the bill for the wind-down of Calgary's Green Line LRT project after he withdrew funding earlier this month.
"I don't see why Alberta taxpayers should be asked to pay for a decade-long mismanagement and decisions of past mayors and city council," Dreeshen told CBC Radio's Calgary Eyeopener host Loren McGinnis Wednesday.
Dreeshen maintained he didn't kill the Green Line when he pulled the province's share of funding for it Sept. 3, contrary to claims by multiple members of Calgary city council that the LRT project was dead the moment the transportation minister made that move.
Several council members also said that with no provincial funding committed in the future, the project as currently envisioned is not possible to achieve.
Dreeshen again contradicted council, claiming "the funding is still there" for an alignment that is more cost-effective, longer and above ground.
"I was surprised to see council voting to potentially end the Green Line," the minister said, adding he hopes council would change its mind if a new alignment is shown to be feasible.
"I hope that they want to build the Green Line and that they know that our provincial contribution, and federal contribution, remains on the table."
'Funding is still there' for Green Line from province
Dreeshen said in an interview with CBC Radio's The Homestretch on Aug. 1 that funding for the Green line in its current form was "100 per cent" secure.
On Wednesday he said the money is still there, provided that the city meets the province's expectations for the project.
"I didn't go back on that. The funding is still there. The $1.53-billion commitment from the province is still there. We did have stipulations. That wasn't a blank cheque that we were going to give the city," he said.
"There were conditions of making sure the Red and Blue lines were tied into the Green Line, the new event centre would be connected, as well as stretching down to the southeast of Calgary."
Dreeshen reiterated that the project isn't viable as it is, and its exorbitant cost would have made it the most expensive LRT project in North America.
Asked whether the province would step in and take leadership of building the Green Line, the transportation minister said the province is still committed to working with the city to get the project back on the rails.
Dreeshen said a third party has been contracted to come up with a new alignment for the Green Line by December that will forgo plans to tunnel through downtown Calgary in favour of laying tracks above ground to extend the line further into the southeast of the city.
"That would be our hope and obviously that we've heard a wide range of billion-dollar-plus tunneling costs that could be avoided if we were to not tunnel under downtown," he said.
It's unclear how a new alignment would connect the Green Line to the Red and Blue lines without tunneling underground, or how the train service would extend to Seton without going over the reported cost of $6.2 billion — funding that includes contributions from all three levels of government.
Dreeshen said he hopes a new plan can be agreed upon early in the new year that would see work begin and tracks start to be laid sometime in 2025. He said if the city decides not to accept the province's new plan, "the Green Line alignment will be on the shelf."
"It'll be there for future councils to consider. But we need to make sure that the City of Calgary wants this alignment and we'll see what happens in December."
Premier Smith weighs in
Premier Danielle Smith told reporters at a Wednesday news conference at Western Canada High School that the province is still more than willing to work with city council on a new Green Line alignment.
She said the province has hired AECOM to create a new alignment and has made clear her desire to see the plan extend to Seton and connect with the city's Red and Blue LRT lines.
Smith added she was pleased to see Ward 1 Coun. Sonya Sharp suggest the creation of a committee including representatives from the municipal, provincial and federal governments to get the Green Line rolling again.
"Thank you to all the council members who are willing to engage with us in good faith. We'll reach out to our federal counterparts to see if they want to participate in that because the federal funding is going to be very important. I understand there's some time limits on that," Smith said.
Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek said outside council chambers on Tuesday the federal portion of funding for the LRT project — which comes from the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program — will be off the table on March 31, 2025, if a project is not submitted by then.
Gondek appeared pessimistic that the province will be able to pull it off.
"If the Government of Alberta does not have a plan in place, does not have agreements in principle from potential partners, and they don't have that all in by the 31st of March, that funding won't be on the table anymore," Gondek told reporters.
"And for them to be able to do that with any kind of certainty and predictability will require a review from their cabinet, from their Treasury Board. Same thing goes with the feds. And it'll have to come to council to see if we can actually afford it. So, all of this getting done before March 31st is incredibly unlikely."
Neil McKendrick, the former city transit manager and member of the ad hoc committee, Rethink the Green Line, told CBC News he believes the city is trying to preserve its own reputation, after mismanaging the LRT expansion, by winding down the project.
He added the move to an $850-million wind-down is premature and the city should be listening to the province on alternative proposals for the Green Line.
"I don't think that any amount of money to do what they said they're supposedly doing is a worthwhile investment," McKendrick said.
"I think they're doing it to save face and hand the project over, saying, 'OK, we did the best we could and so we're not going to stick with this any longer,' which I don't think is a responsible use of taxpayers money."
Asked about the costly wind-down, McKendrick said the city should be held accountable.
"I would say that the whole onus of this is on the current city council," he said.
"The province is just basically saying, 'If you guys want to build this, go ahead, but we're not giving you any money.'"
Speaking on Calgary Eyeopener on Thursday morning, Gondek said it's unclear where the money will come from to pay for the Green Line wind-down.
She said when the city approached both the provincial and federal governments about the amended, shorter alignment, it was discussed that permanent transit funding dollars would go toward extending the line south in the future.
"At that point, council had managed to find just over $700 million to keep this project going," the mayor said Thursday. "So, it may be that the money comes from there, it may be that the money has to come from somewhere else. Our finance department is going to outline all of those options for us. It's nothing short of devastating."
McKendrick added a good portion of the $1.3 billion already spent on the project by the city is likely not salvageable as it was paid to staff who worked on it. He said property that was purchased could be resold to make up some costs, but ultimately it would amount to a drop in the bucket of the enormous price tag of the Green Line thus far.
"There's some money recoverable, but things like the contract to buy x number of LRT cars, that probably won't be salvageable. In fact, it will cost money to get out of that," he said. "This whole project could well go down as one of the most mismanaged civic projects in Canadian history."
Feds upset by Green Line situation?
Dreeshen also appeared to speak on behalf of the federal government during his Wednesday interview on Calgary Eyeopener, claiming the federal transport office is frustrated by "10 years of headache," again placing blame on former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi, now the Alberta NDP Leader, for mismanaging the Green Line project.
"No kilometre of track has been built. So that, I think, is the big frustration of the province and the federal government, is we have a city-led project that hasn't really done anything in 10 years," Dreeshen said.
"They're as frustrated as we are of the fact that this has been a 10-year project that hasn't actually laid one kilometre of track."
CBC News has reached out to the federal minister of housing, infrastructure and communities, Sean Fraser, for a response to Dreeshen's remarks.
Fraser has previously said he was "surprised and disappointed by the decision" by the province to pull funding for the LRT, adding the move would impact thousands of jobs.
"This was especially surprising considering the positive discussions that took place with provincial officials at regular meetings where these apparent issues were not raised, up until the province's decision to delay construction, risking cost escalations," Fraser's office said in a statement to CBC News on Sept. 6.
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With files from the Calgary Eyeopener, Kylee Pedersen and Omar Sherif